Canon for BADD ANGST (Re: Spying Game Philosophy - The Phoenix must die!

[msbeadsley]

No: HPFGUIDX 81164

<snip>
Jen:
> I am curious about your take on MDDT on *how far* Dumbledore is 
> willing to go to "bring about the end by fire."  Do you read it to 
> be a symbolic transformation or a literal one? Because here's what 
Pip!Squeak says:

Pip:
> "And yes, if the WW is irredeemably evil, it is better to sacrifice 
> it for the future. That is a decision that has been made before. 
> (Response to my Reaction to TBAY post)"

Sandy:
That clause, "if the WW is irredeemably evil," is key. It's sticky, 
because any statement like that implies that someone has made that 
decision. And that implies a monster, a megalomaniac. No one (except 
some FEATHERBOA wearers, maybe <I keep mine out of sight under a 
loose floor board and visit it now and then>) wants the headmaster to 
turn out to be a Gahan Wilson (lovely man, cartoonist and writer) 
cannibal Santa Claus.

Pip:
> "The Wizarding World must be prepared to destroy itself in order to 
> defeat Voldemort and all his kind for ever." (original TBAY).

Sandy:
In the Christian old testament, rather than ice or fire, we have 
flood. And the survivors behaved, didn't they? Noah and his family 
were quite upstanding, I'm sure, no truck with Lucifer for countless 
generations. And how many billion descendants did they have? Not to 
mention Sodom and Gomorrah. (Living in the bible belt (Kentucky), 
growing up, I thought one of those was NYC and the other was 
Hollywood.)

Just who is Dumbledore? And what religion are most wizards? It's 
pretty obvious they're not pagans; I'm pagan, and they're not...I 
think. So who is the supreme spiritual authority in the WW? Fudge? 
No, it's Dumbledore. He knows more about everything than anybody. I 
have to conclude that if this is the only hope--if the cataclysm, the 
Phoenix pyre is what's left to weigh against NO hope--then yes, the 
end justifies the means. (And if someone not God has to make the 
decision, then is that person even more damned than Voldemort? Even 
if he does it out of love? Dumbledore saves the world by destroying 
it and is stuck for eternity in Azkaban-beyond-the-veil. (Bangy 
enough for you bangers?))

[And here is where for *once* in my life I looked out at all of you 
and showed some sense and refrained from giving Hebby, my dear little 
patron saint of a list elf, a heart attack by explaining how I went 
many years ago from (Southern Baptist) Christianity (Amen!) to 
paganism and how I really should come up with something for which 
HUBRIS is an acronym to describe it.]

But back to Dumbledore. I think the reason we all (me, too) don't 
want to go with manipulating, lying, megalomaniac Dumbledore is that 
we want, we *need* him to be "better" than that. We need him to save 
the world and retain his nobility even if he loses his life. Even if 
he has to sacrifice Harry, or let Harry sacrifice himself. Even 
without a God in the WW, we want to believe that Dumbledore would 
leave the flood, the purge, to Him. Here's a secret--you could ignore 
the entirety of this post and just read the next sentence: What 
happens to a man who sees the need for the flood as clearly as God 
did and yet doesn't command quite that much power? What if he has to 
use the tools at hand?

I thought I had a handle on things HP. Then I read OoP. And Pip's 
post is the first thing that has made me think maybe I can go back 
and read the series through again (thanks, Pip). What I think of as 
the new, industrial MAGIC DISHWASHWER is the only thing that has 
allowed me to incorporate OoP without feeling as if the whole thing 
was ruined. Nothing else makes it all fit for me. If I'm wrong, then 
I give you permission when the book which points it out is released 
to pelt me with ITYS (I told you so: if not a common acronym, let's 
adopt it now and save time later.)

Jen:
> I have a problem believing this is Dumbledore's intent, and that's 
> the point I was trying to make with the canon quotes: Dumbledore 
> will not sacrifice his commitment to the magical code to transform 
> the WW through annihilation. The main reason being we have multiple 
> canon examples of Dumbledore's theory on "choice."  He will never 
> get 100% of the WW to choose destruction, so destroying the WW 
> without consent is an example of force and not choice.

Sandy:
Is Dumbledore then more concerned with adhering to "the magical code" 
(which we don't know the contents of anyway) and the subsequent state 
of his own soul than in saving the world? It's not clear he needs 
to "force" anything; he merely has to make his own choices in such a 
way that others' choices bring on the purge. And it *may* not even be 
necessary. Maybe Harry will win and when Voldemort is finally gone, 
Harry's scar will open and some world-saving dark-lord-preventing and 
let's-all-share-and-get-along previously unknown magical artifact 
will pop out of Harry's head and leave him with a nice, smooth 
forehead. That would be nice. And after OoP, even unlikelier.

Jen:
> Ok, I think I'm getting what you mean--that Dumbledore's agenda is 
> the ultimate expression of the ancient magical mysteries, (The Code 
> of the Phoenix, perhaps?!?).  Hmmm, that's a very interesting 
> thought. It would still be a Hitler-like theme though, 
> and wouldn't follow DD's choice theory--a sort of Wizard 
> destruction imperative, with Dumbledore forcing destruction of the 
> WW to follow the Code to its natural end.  Correct me if I'm 
> interpreting your thoughts wrong, though. 

Heck, sometimes I'm not even sure how *I'm* interpreting my thoughts, 
but I think I answered this somewhere above.

Sandy, peering at her bottle of firewhisky in its compartment inside 
the soapbox and briefly contemplating chemical oblivion